Ocean carriers are facing growing wait times for berths at Singapore and omitting the port on intra-Asia and Asia-Africa services amid a deepening logjam at Southeast Asia’s leading container gateway caused by ongoing Red Sea vessel diversions.
Carriers and forwarders said the average berthing delay is three to five days, but HMM and Ocean Network Express (ONE) said they are experiencing more than that.
Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said the situation is the culmination of months of disruption as carriers curtail or blank services, discharging cargo in Singapore and other ports because vessel diversions around southern Africa mean they no longer call at Middle East or Red Sea ports.
As a result, Singapore has seen container volumes surge 8.8% to 13.4 million TEUs in the first four months of 2024 compared with last year, MPA said in a statement Thursday.
The agency said vessels are having to wait longer to berth for several reasons, including an increase in vessels arriving off-schedule, the bunching of vessel arrivals, and terminal congestion and longer dwell times as carriers discharge more containers as they forgo subsequent voyages to catch up on sailing schedules.
Terminal operator PSA Singapore is reactivating closed berths and container yards at its Keppel terminal to increase cargo handling capacity.
“The waiting time for ONE vessels has increased to an average of four days up to a maximum of eight and a half days,” an ONE spokesperson told the Journal of Commerce.
The situation is being exacerbated by high container yard utilization, so productivity is dropping and dwell times are increasing, the ONE spokesperson added.
HMM said it was facing average delays of more than four days. Despite the congestion, HMM said it continues to use Singapore as its main transshipment hub, but the carrier warned “if congestion at Singapore port keeps getting worse, we will consider rolling cargo or skipping Singapore to improve our services.”
Skipping Singapore calls
Carriers, including ONE and OOCL, are already skipping Singapore on regional services.
“Several vessels, especially those operating intra-Asia and West African services, are omitting Singapore and all Singapore [remain-on-board] cargo is being discharged at Port Klang [Malaysia],” the ONE spokesperson said.
But the extra volumes at Port Klang, which comprises the Westport and Northport terminals, is worsening congestion there, with Hapag-Lloyd reporting berth waiting times of 36 to 45 hours due to high yard utilization and vessel bunching.
Pointing out the impact of delays on intra-Asia and regional services, one senior executive at an intra-Asia carrier said a three-day delay at Singapore was the equivalent of a transit from Hong Kong to Singapore that included a call at Shenzhen’s western Shekou and Chiwan terminals.
“Intra-Asia carriers operate on tight fixed schedules,” the source said. “If there’s a three- to five-day delay at Singapore, intra-Asia carriers have no choice but to omit port calls, or discharge and roll cargo just to maintain some semblance of a schedule.”
Carriers said they are in close discussions with PSA over vessel arrivals to try to minimize delays at Singapore and the negative impact on vessel schedules. “[But] current berth capacity is insufficient to cater for our overall berth requirements, so delays continue to be expected,” the ONE spokesperson said.
Details please refer to JOC news.
Source:
Wallis, K. (2024, May 31). Carriers omit Singapore calls amid growing delays as Asia port congestion spreads. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/carriers-omit-singapore-calls-amid-growing-delays-asia-port-congestion-spreads_20240531.html